Fusion Bank wins big at the HKB Management Excellence Awards 2021

It has bagged the Executive of the Year - Banking and the Team of the Year - Banking awards.

Virtual bank Fusion Bank has clinched two major awards at the HKB Management Excellence Awards 2021 for its innovation on ambush facial recognition control, as well as for its Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

The bank has deployed its ambush facial recognition control, which has won the Team of the Year - Banking award, due to the different risks it faces from online fraudsters, hackers and criminals. On top of the traditional ID verification, a new security tactic in the form of a surprise mandatory facial recognition has been set in place to protect the customer’s assets and to maintain a premier customer experience.

At present, Fusion Bank is the only pure digital bank that has enhanced facial recognition control and used it for the management of its financial crime risks.

Through this new feature, the bank can detect the associated criminal network at an early stage, and in some cases, even before the financial crime is committed. It can also effectively mitigate the potential fraud or money laundering risks posed to the bank and its customers, and facilitate the police’s investigations and even prosecutions.

Meanwhile, its CISO Patrick Liu, who brought home the Executive of the Year - Banking award for Fusion Bank, led the company’s IT security team to deploy IT security measures for the whole bank, including controls on internal systems and customer banking channels. He acted as the key person to liaison with the regulators for issuing banking licences and approval for business commencement on technology aspects.

Patrick also led various teams to use artificial intelligence to recognise a customer’s facial features and compare them with the customer's government-issued document. According to the April 2020 NIST research, the best facial recognition algorithm has a 0.08% error rate. This biometric data enabled the bank to accurately identify its customers in a highly secure manner.

This innovative authentication control effectively deterred fraudsters from acquiring legitimate accounts, as well as cyber-attacks.

Patrick also led a cyber-attack project to ensure the bank’s production environment cybersecurity measures are effective by employing a group of CBEST accredited practitioners to perform ethical hacking to the bank’s production environment. This is due to the fact that cyber risks remain the highest risk amount in a purely digital bank.

The testing was done under a strictly defined framework to select the most valuable target from a relevant threat actor perspective. Patrick oversaw the whole ethical hacking stages, including reviewing the most relevant threat actor’s profile, defining hacking objectives and target systems, approval of daily hacking activities, reviewing project reports and defining management actions, as well as presenting to the CEO, board of directors, major investors and banking regulator.

Through the cyber-attack drill led by the CISO, Fusion Bank has established a strong cybersecurity strategy in just seven months. It has gained the trust of its customers and cybersecurity has become a critical business differentiator and foundation for stable business growth.

HKB Management Excellence Awards honours Hong Kong’s most outstanding business leaders. It is on the lookout for trailblazing individuals, innovators and teams whose initiatives have brought tangible business gains for the success of their companies.